Protecting Turkey Eggs Is Key to Continuing
Thanksgiving Tradition

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 1998--Turkey
hens only lay 70 to 100 eggs a year, and you cant count your turkeys
until they hatch.

Last year, more than 430 million turkey eggs were laid in the United
States, but nearly 100 million failed to hatch after incubation, said
Agriculture Secretary
Dan Glickman.
This is a major concern for the turkey industry and for the many
Americans who look forward to turkey each year at their Thanksgiving
table.

At Secretary Glickmans request, U.S.
Department of Agriculture researchers continue to study the problem and
seek ways to boost egg production and encourage more consistent hatching.

Reducing the time eggs spend in cool storage could help, according to USDA
researchers, ever scrambling for ways to boost the hatch.

As hens are bred for heavier body weight, the number of eggs they lay
during their reproductive cycle gets smaller, said Murray R. Bakst, a
physiologist with USDAs Agricultural
Research Service. Bakst is not sure what causes the cell death, but
suggests limiting storage to three days at 18 degrees C to maximize hatching.

Turkey embryo death ranges from one to 15 percent of the total eggs laid,
according to an ARS survey of 10 commercial turkey breeders and hatcheries.
Large hatcheries may have hundreds of thousands of eggs in their hatchery at a
time. When incubators are full, fresh laid eggs are generally stored from five
to 25 days in a cool room to await incubation. Bakst found that nearly half of
the embryos cells die during the first five days of cool storage. This
may be a major factor contributing to embryonic death, he said.

Another reason to ensure that eggs hatch: Theres not much of a market
for turkey eggs. Theyre much chewier than chicken eggs when scrambled.
Last year, consumers gobbled up a total of 4.7 billion pounds of turkey, nearly
double the amount consumed in 1980.